


Adrift

by Ernmark (M_Moonshade)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: I'm a sucker for these kinds of scenes okay?, M/M, Written post Train from Nowhere, telepathy gone wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8221760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Moonshade/pseuds/Ernmark
Summary: Juno tries to read Miasma's mind and gets in too deep. Now he and Nureyev are stranded in the middle of nowhere and Juno's adrift in his own mind.





	

I’m lying on Martian sand, covered in dust so thick that one good sneeze will make me indistinguishable from a sandstorm. It’s clinging to the wet trails on my cheek and stinging my wide-open eyes, but I can’t blink against the grit any more than I can wipe the blood off my face.

Right now, it’s all I can do not to drown. I’m caught in the undertow of a stream of consciousness so deep it’s trying to sweep me away. I don’t know which way is up. I don’t even know who I am anymore, there are so many “I”s in this place. I dove in trying to get a better read on Miasma, but she’s long gone, and her thoughts are just a bucket of water in an endless sea. Hyperion City is so far away, but their thoughts are frothing and rolling in a great big tide of thoughts and hopes and dreams and nightmares, and there’s not a lighthouse in sight.

I hear bits and pieces of a messy, scattered mind as big and chaotic as the Milky Way, and I find myself splashing toward it even before I realize it’s Rita. But before I can reorient myself she’s obscured by a hundred thousand other minds that are infinitely less familiar. They break like waves over my face, leaving me blind and gasping for air. Every time I think I’m about to break the surface, I go under again, and I’m tired.

I’m so damn tired.

I wish I could lie down like the body in the sand, rest my tired mind and sleep until Hyperion City is as mythical as the Ancient Martians. I can see my body, reflected on surface thoughts like tiny bubbles in deep water. My lower half is being slowly buried by wind and sand, but my shoulders are held off the ground. A slender arm cradles my head in the crook of its elbow. A long-fingered hand cups my cheek. The only clean spot on my face is a triangular patch where a thumb has been stroking dust away from my skin.

There are sounds, too, in those thoughts. The little pearls of sound are meaningless at first, just a chorus of “no no no no no”, over and over again, interspersed with little beads of “please” and “God” and “oh” and “Ju”.

**_Please_ ** _no **God** no **oh** no **Juno**_

That last word feels out of place, but once I put it together I can’t pretend it isn’t right. But it can’t be. The syllables are strung together on a line of anxiety so taut you could use it to string a piano, and that anxiety’s woven together from horror and fear and desperation and despair and… and something else so bright it hurts to even think about.

But it’s the only solid thing in this sea of thought, and so I grab onto it and haul myself arm over arm along its length. Naiveté hopes it’s a lifeline. Cynicism points out it might end at an anchor half-buried in the bottom of the sea. I follow it all the same.

“Dammit, Juno,” come whispers that are less like thoughts and more like sounds. The words are more solid than anything here, more substantial and real, like a buoy in this churning ocean. It keeps me afloat, and for the first time in what feels like years, I can focus on grounding myself without the fear of drowning.

The sea slowly drains into bone-dry Martian sand, and I’m lying on my back on the ground, cradled in the arms of a thief. Through Nureyev’s eyes I can see my eyelids start to droop and my rigid spine start to bend, accompanied by relief and dizzy elation. It’s a lot better place to be than inside my own head, where most of my processes are taken over by the pain of burst blood vessels and sand in my eyes. There’s a precious bottle of water in his hands as he flushes the worst of the grit away from my corneas, and bloodless tears get to work on clearing away the rest.

The last of the telepathy evaporates away into reality, and I pretend not to notice the nearest, strongest feeling that lingers around me like morning fog.


End file.
